Subscribe

Subscribe

Dad wants new wife and kids to meet

By Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency
on Feb 17, 2018

Dear Devastated: One perspective on this is that you have permitted your son to try to punish you (and blackball your wife) for 18 months, but when that didn't give him personal or emotional traction, he decided to up the ante.

Both of your adult children might be torn by loyalty to their mother, or their mother might be making things very difficult for them. (This is one reason to try to maintain an amicable relationship with your ex.)

There is a very tough balance between understanding this rejection of your current wife, and reckoning with your own desire to see your children -- and the necessity for adults to eventually accept one another's partners. It is a tough truth that your marriage will suffer if you continue to allow your adult children to remain estranged from your wife.

You should keep in touch with your son periodically with personal updates, tell him you miss him and encourage him to get in touch when he is ready. If you have something to apologize for, then apologize and offer to talk. If you created extra-sadness for your ex-wife by leaping into your current relationship quickly, then you should acknowledge and apologize to your ex, also.

What you should not negotiate over is the fact that you are now married to someone else. At some point, both of your children must let your wife accompany you into their lives.

Dear Amy: My husband looks at his phone, dialing numbers, sending and reading texts, etc. while driving. I believe this is unsafe, even for a second. Our child will be driving in a few years and this is dangerous behavior to model.

--Sponsored Video--

My husband's response is, "You could never be a pilot" (he is) because, "you can't do two things at once."

My response is that he could kill or injure us, plus there are safety alarms, etc. in airplanes not found in cars.

I would be OK with driving all the time, but that doesn't fix when he does drive with my child or others in the car.

Dear Amy: My husband and I are new parents of a 5-month-old son. Over a month ago we left the baby with my in-laws for a few hours to have a date night. When we returned that night, my mother-in-law, who was supposed to be...Read More